&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;Voice search is predicted to be 50 percent of all searches by 2020&period; That's only two years hence&period; Are you getting ready&quest;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;

&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;Opinions expressed by
Entrepreneur contributors are their own&period;&NewLine;&Tab;

If you’re a business owner&comma; you’re likely to have one of two reactions to this&colon; either &lpar;you're thinking&rpar;&colon;

"It’s too early to bet any significant portion of my marketing budget on voice&comma;" or&comma;

"Now is the time to double-down on my voice initiatives and win the race for my brand&period;"

I recently attended Vayner Media’s VoiceCon &lpar;on the future of voice and digital audio&comma; including AI&rpar; with a handful of my leadership team&period; There was plenty of pomp and circumstance&comma; fluff and encouragement for everyone in attendance&period;

But me -- I’m a tactical person&period; Of all the speeches&comma; presentations and rah-rah sessions&comma; the thing that stood out is that there wasn’t a ton of actionable advice regarding what brands can do right now&period; A lot of the information we’re getting is speculative at this point&period;

Fear not&comma; however&colon; There arespecific actions entrepreneurs can take right now to be active now&comma; when we're on the frontier of voice&period; Here’s where to start&colon;

Dive in to sonic branding&period;

Sonic branding is nothing new&period; Go back to the early days of radio and television and you’ll find examples of it from Twentieth Century Fox &lpar;the music that heralded each new movie from that studio&rpar;&comma; the NBC chimes and the roar of the Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion&period;

The thing you’ll notice about all of them is that they aren’t songs&comma; and they aren’t jingles with catchy lyrics -- they’re sounds and tones that are directly and almost universally recognized as a brand&period; The message is that when you’re looking to make yourself audibly recognizable&comma; you shouldn't concentrate on words or taglines or think about musical composition&period;

Instead&comma; find something simple yet unique that can accompany every audio advertisement that you plan on inserting into your ads&comma; on Spotify&comma; Pandora or any podcasts your brand deems a good fit for reaching your audience&period;

Consistency is key&period;

Today&comma; only 16 percent of Americans own a smart speaker &period;&period;&period; around 39 million people&period; But that number is 128 percent higher than it was in January 2017&period; Voice is taking over more and more of the search market&comma; and the time to optimize your strategy to leverage it isn’t going to be when it reaches 50 percent in 2020 -- it’s right now&period;

This isn’t an online search engine I'm talking about&period; It isn’t a medium where consumers can look at different sources to find information about your brand&period; It's a channel where the in-home assistant is going to present one result that people are going to listen to&comma; so the AI used by your assistant has to know that the information it presents is 100 percent accurate&period;

If there’s conflicting information about your hours&comma; address&comma; phone number&comma; email or point of contact between multiple different platforms&comma; you’re going to rank low on the totem pole of results and your brand will be largely ignored by voice-search results&period;

You need to be utterly thorough and consistent across every social channel&comma; every review-based site and every single online listing&semi; and you need to be updating the information constantly&period; Every time you change anything in terms of company listing information&comma; every one of those sites and platforms you’re listed on must be immediately changed and updated to ensure everyone can find you the exact way you want to be found&period;

Companies like Yext already do exactly that&period; Yext will allow users to update 75 to 100 listings with a couple of keystrokes&period; This works twofold&colon; It makes it easy to ensure your information is consistent across all channels&comma; and it allows you to consistently update your listings so that the Google algorithm finds you relevant&period;

Alexa Skills squatting

For those unfamiliar with Alexa Skills&comma; it’s a function that allows users to download skills to their Alexa device&comma; then get updates and tips every day on that specific skill&period; There’s a huge opportunity here for agencies&comma; brands and business owners&period;

Let’s say you own a social media marketing agency&period; If you create a skill called “Facebook marketing advice&comma;” you have the ability to talk straight to that part of your crowd that subscribes to that skill&period; All they have to do is say “Alexa&comma; give me an update on Facebook marketing advice” and your voice will pour in to their living room&period; You'll be able to speak directly to those people&comma; humanizing your relationship with and establishing yourself as an authority on the subject&period;

That's why the time to own key phrases within skills is now&period; Get out in front of everyone else&comma; and when voice has reached its potential a few years hence&comma; you won’t be scrounging for what’s left of the terms your audience is searching for&period; You’ll be the authority&period;

As I said&comma; voice still has a ways to go before it becomes the ubiquitous solution for search&period; I have five voice assistants in my office and all five of them give me different answers to the same question&comma; so we aren’t there yet&period; But&comma; we will be&comma; and sooner than you think&period;

If you take the preparatory steps above&comma; you’ll be in position to bury your competition before the deadline even approaches&period;